Air Source Heat Pump

[lynn Minton]

Hi
Im hoping someone can help me before I go bankrupt or freeze to death.
we an air source heat pump installed in Nov 2017 to replace our existing old oil system. There were problems form the outset, the heating never reached a reasonable temperature, (last years cold snap was awful.) we supplemented the heating with an open fire. And the hot water was so luke warm that we had to add boiling water form a kettle to wash up! To add insult to injury, our end of year bill for our four bedroomed semi was £3500. The company that fitted the system finally sent an engineer, who changed the thermostat to a mobile one, which we can put in a cooler place than where the original was. He also changed the setting on the thermostat on the water tank.
This ahs improved the temp. with both the heating and the water. Bit this obviously means the system is on more often. So I checked my electricity bill for the last 8 weeks and it's nearly £800.
Is anybody else having similar problems or advice.

 

[muggles]

Can you give more details of your home (approx age, insulation levels etc) and of the system installed (make/model of equipment)? Were the installers MCS registered?

A quirk of ASHP is that it gets less efficient, and thus more expensive to run, the colder it is outside. The extent to which this is the case is dependent on both the quality of the installed equipment, and also the quality of the installer. Electricity is around four times more expensive than oil per kWh, so if your system is using more than a quarter of the kWh in electricity than it was in oil, it's going to be more expensive to run.

 

[lynn Minton]

Hi
We looked into installation as when we moved in it was a very old heating system which needed to be replaced. I looked into ASHP and asked a company that was advertising to give me some info. They came round and did a survey saying that now not all houses were suitable. They did the survey and said it was. They apparently checked all of the insulation and construction. We were told that the property was suitable.
The house is in two halves. One house was built in 1945 and the other in the late 1700. It does have cavity wall, loft and double glazing.
I understand that they are lass efficient in really cold weather, but the last two months have not been that cold. I only have the heating on for two hours in the morning than on in the evening. Im too scarred to use it. Im a single mum and I cant afford these bills.

 

[Benny50]

Hi. This doesn’t sound right. We have a large 4 bedroom house with 14kw air source heating. It costs us £600-£700 pound a year in bills and we are all electric. Last year we left it on permanently downstairs for about 4 months as it takes so long to heat the floors and weather was colder too. It is a 4year old house and code 4 rated so very little heat loss, so difficult to compare with an older house.

 

[snb]

Hi. This doesn’t sound right. We have a large 4 bedroom house with 14kw air source heating. It costs us £600-£700 pound a year in bills and we are all electric. Last year we left it on permanently downstairs for about 4 months as it takes so long to heat the floors and weather was colder too. It is a 4year old house and code 4 rated so very little heat loss, so difficult to compare with an older house.

your heat loss is probably less than 20% of the ops older property.

 

[snb]

we need the answers to muggles questions before we can give any advise, most likely there are numerous things that can be done do improve your situation

 

[muggles]

Hi
We looked into installation as when we moved in it was a very old heating system which needed to be replaced. I looked into ASHP and asked a company that was advertising to give me some info. They came round and did a survey saying that now not all houses were suitable. They did the survey and said it was. They apparently checked all of the insulation and construction. We were told that the property was suitable.
The house is in two halves. One house was built in 1945 and the other in the late 1700. It does have cavity wall, loft and double glazing.
I understand that they are lass efficient in really cold weather, but the last two months have not been that cold. I only have the heating on for two hours in the morning than on in the evening. Im too scarred to use it. Im a single mum and I cant afford these bills.

ASHP is not my area of expertise, but I'd be very very surprised indeed if a house built in the 1700s was in any way suitable for ASHP, unless significant improvements have been made to its insulation levels in the intervening years.

Were your installers MCS registered? Did you get an MCS certificate upon completion?

It would be good to have this and my other questions answered, so that we can all have a clearer idea of your present situation

 

[lynn Minton]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I will get all the tech info tomorrow. They were registered but the company that installed were subcontracted. I am trying to find out if it should have been installed in the first place. As in, was the survey done correctly. From what I’m reading now it sounds like it should not have been put in.
Thanks I’ll post tech stuff tomorrow.

 

[oilboffin]

I see this all the time with ash I'm sorry but I'm an oil head and look at the heat you get and the efficiencies as well I don't think we know enough yet to go with this technology the idea is good but we are only scratching the surface and you are the guinea pigs I'm afraid.Bob

 

[bernardgreen]

Sadly for Home Farm I have to agree with oilboffin.

In 1979 we bought a plot of land to build our home on, at the time there was no gas supply so "alternative" electrical heating was on the agenda. With over a year to wait before we could start the build there was plenty of time to research heat pump systems. We had a babbling brook as our boundary so we had options of water source as well as air source.

The Philips Experimental House project at Aachen provided us with masses of data. Additional data came from a various sources such as NCAT ( now CAT ) at Machynlleth

The conclusion was that air source heat pumping was excellent in summer for both supply of hot water and cooling of the house. What it could not garantee was heating of the house in winter as evaporators ( the outdoor heat exchangers ) would be prone to icing up and would then require electrical heating to de-ice them.

The conclusion was that water sourced from the babbling brook was viable and was planned to be installed until this once in 100 years event happened while we were building.



Installing the evaporators in a way that would withstand a flash flood was nigh on impossible so the idea was shelved.

The local theatre is heated by water source heat pumps but they have the benefit of a placid mill pond.

You mentioned in another thread that you have a 60 foot well. For winter heating had you considered using the well water as a source ?.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...nbrook-mill/&usg=AOvVaw0650wjmxRIKf3k8bjdnsNj